The Gift of Breathing

April 4, 2016

By Kirsten Palladino

Rainy Sunday mornings are right for praising life with yoga. My first session of the season is going resplendently well. My body isn’t arguing with me as I thought it might—a dedicated yoga class hasn’t been on the calendar in 10 years. A twin pregnancy and decadent, indulgent food in a metropolitan city as a restaurant editor have enabled me to eat recklessly.

Through death and abandonment, my original family of four shrank to one in the course of just a few years. I have grief-gobbled myself into a puffy caterpillar form, minus the legs. Finally, I’ve earned the mockery of the high school girls calling me an elephant, a quarter-century too late.

But my body is strong and limber today, giving me what I need. Hips opened wide after delivering two darling boys in one night—finally, I birthed a living child; full healing lungs breathe in deeply instead of screaming and gasping after a 15-year childhood stint of sucking on the cancer sticks (family legacy).

As we move through our positions, I hear my therapist’s words in my head: “Inhale deeply through your nose as if you’re trying to smell freshly baked chocolate chip cookies. Then breathe out of your mouth so strongly as if you’re trying to blow out birthday candles across the room.” In. Out. Mindful breathing. Here we go.

I glance around the room of my “Easy Like Sunday Morning” yoga class, and I’m as relaxed as a breeze. The relief draws tears to my eyes. My pink nose tingles as if I’ve just inhaled a solitary snowflake. I am determined to honor the flow of the class.

Yearning to belong, I train my eyes on the bodies of the yoga soldiers in our packed class. Their bodies sinewy and muscled underneath their supple skin, their techniques refined. I revel in their wisdom and lovingly bathe in their path, mimicking their movements like a chubby toddler parrots her mama.

As we commit to the downward dog, we push up from our mats with an exhalation of breath for power, and two strong arms. As we lift our hips back into the air and draw our ribs toward the spine, we inhale, and then exhale fully.

We sit upright comfortably, feet tucked ever so slightly under the opposite leg. Crisscross applesauce. I place my single right fingertip behind my tailbone to provide all the support my entire body needs. I do this. Like a giraffe reaching for a bite of leaves from the tallest tree, I turn my body to the warm gray light, dappling in from the rain-splashed windows.

Then the class moves into an intense hip-stretching exercise. I’m a contortionist, with my right foot pressing into my soft belly dough and my left leg drawn back taut, pretending to be a sleek arrow on the hunt, pulled taut on the crossbow.

Like cracking open a coconut, I roll the outside of my right hip down by pushing into the outside edge of my foot and even out my seat. Somehow, as I am wincing to manage all of this, we lay forward and open ourselves fully to the ground, in a humbling, vulnerable open prayer to the fire in our loins.

During this time, the teacher tells us that we should never push ourselves to do anything that feels unsafe or painful. I’m immediately overwhelmed, and my eyes react by silently bawling. My cheeks are wet with the basic cooking ingredients of water, salt and necessity as I consider the basics that I didn’t receive growing up, the basic protections, the simplest of advice—the most primitive of worry.

After twinning the exercise on the opposite leg, we rustle up to stretch out into bent-over wide-legged triangles. It’s now that I take note of the male student behind me. Was he here all along? I’ve already tallied two in the classroom—one softer male three mats over to my right and another in the far right corner—but it’s alarming to think there’s a full-grown muscled man right behind me who I wasn’t aware of.

This heart quickens.

Suddenly, it’s time to relax and I’m supposed to trust this space. As the class draws toward the end, the instructor has us pull into our child’s pose. She tells us we are safe. We transition into rolling onto our backs, lifting up our hips and legs. “Stretch your legs out as you need,” she tells us.

Soothing music lulls around me as I roll my hips around, relieving them from the hard work I’ve done in the earlier exercise. The teacher says to make this practice our own. She’s turned the lights a little lower, to relax people, and she’s walking around waving aromatic scents of lavender salve under our noses.

My legs are tucked above me—I’m in a reverse child’s pose, except my arms are tightly wrapped around my legs and my eyes are closed to relish in the relaxation.

The instructor leans down and whispers to me, “Is your back hurting?”

I pop my eyes open and look around. Everyone has their legs flat on their mats, yet my arms are fiercely pulling my shins down to my belly. My legs are hugged in tightly; I’m giving myself the embrace I wish the people of my world could. Or would.

Cocooned, I am wrapped into myself: a tiny little package, impenetrable. I lock eyes with my teacher’s shiny green eyes. She is here for me, with a gift of only love and assistance. I am broken down once more, and my shoulders quake.

I manage a smile and say, “No.” She gently takes my feet and pulls my legs out. Now I match my peers in position.

I know then what is wrong and I hiccup-cry as I try to mindfully smell cookies and blow out birthday candles but try try try as I might, I can’t close my eyes because I never know when another group of high school football players are going to force me in a closet again to take their turn at seven minutes in my hell or just one dark muscled man is going to lock the door, shove a dresser in front of it, and then heave himself on top of me with a hammer in his hand, reeking of a stench of old urine I’ll never unsmell, shoving his body parts inside of me, while I fight to breathe on a thin dark orange blanket in the middle of the darkest night, lost. My psyche caresses worse memories away before my mind is rendered powerless, a lost balloon floating above my body. Watching. Waiting. Breath withheld.

“Gratitude,” the instructor begins to read a poem out loud. Her gentle voice waxes and wanes in my ears as my heart thumps and burns in my chest. I have pulled in my lower lip with my two front teeth, and I’m chewing on it in rhythm to my heart.

My right hand twists around my lime green mat, fingers writhing on the cool wooden floor below like the stripper I can’t believe I didn’t become, who I chose to not become.

This is no longer an exercise in relaxation. I’m fighting for air and my eyes are wide open in a full-blown panic attack.

I wonder if I should run out, but I’m frozen in fear (a familiar feeling).

Tears pool around my earlobes, and I pray they aren’t wetting my expensive hearing aids. The first of the calendar month zings our accounts to cover tuition and therapy for our autistic son. Goodness. A merry-go-round of indulgent self-pity that I haven’t yet succumbed to encircles my head like a revolving crown of shame. My entire body begins to shake, wishing for just one tiny break in the clouds.

I think to myself: I know where I am. I am in a safe place. I am in control.

Finally.

I have placed myself here, and I am grateful for the journey I am on.

This moment is mine. I choose this moment. I choose this place.

I blow out the birthday candles, for I am reborn in my strength of choosing.

I am grateful to be breathing.

Kirsten Palladino is an award-winningeditor and writer, as well as the author of the forthcoming wedding planning book for LGBTQ couples, Modern Traditions, (Seal Press/Hachette Book Group, Spring 2017). She’s the co-founder and editorial director of equallywed.com, the world’s leading digital LGBTQ wedding magazine. She blogs about trauma recovery at foragedwellness.com. Palladino has been profiled on CNN and in The New York Times. Her work has appeared in Entrepreneur magazine, ARTNews magazine, Art & Antiques magazine, The Knot, Executive Traveler magazine, the Huffington Post, and more. She was recognized as one of Glamour magazine’s Hometown Heroes for 2015. Palladino has an open door communications policy on Twitter at @kirstenop and Facebook at fb.com/kirstenpalladino. Her prior piece on The Manifest-Station can be found here.

Join Jen Pastiloff in Tuscany Sep 17-24, 2016. There are 5 spaces left. This will be her only international retreat in 2016 and is her favorite retreat of the year. Email barbara@jenniferpastiloff.com asap. More info here. Must email first to sign up.

Join founder Jen Pastiloff for a special Mother’s Day weekend retreat in Ojai Calif, May 6th, 7th, & 8th, 2016.Get ready to connect to your joy, manifest the life of your dreams, and tell the truth about who you are. This program is an excavation of the self, a deep and fun journey into questions such as: If I wasn’t afraid, what would I do? Who would I be if no one told me who I was?Jennifer Pastiloff, creator of Manifestation Yoga and author of the forthcoming Girl Power: You Are Enough, invites you beyond your comfort zone to explore what it means to be creative, human, and free—through writing, asana, and maybe a dance party or two! Jennifer’s focus is less on yoga postures and more on diving into life in all its unpredictable, messy beauty.Note Bring a journal, an open heart, and a sense of humor. Click the photo to sign up.

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The Manifest-Station was created by Jennifer Pastiloff. Angela Patel is editor and full-time badass. These two beauty-hunters curate content that will move you, make you think, and remind you what it means to be human. Jen leads her workshops (The Manifestation Workshop: On Being Human) all over the world & online. Check the tab at the top under retreats/workshops. Jen is also the founder of "Girl Power: You Are Enough," to remind young women that yes, they do have a place in this world and they are enough. No matter what. Jen is represented by Adriann Ranta at Foundry Media. For queries please contact aranta@foundrymedia.com. And remember: Don't Be An Asshole. To contribute to our scholarship fund to help send a woman to a workshop/retreat please donate here:

2 Comments

Exquisitely written with a strong yet vulnerable “voice”. The descriptions of the breath extraordinary and powerful. THank you Kirsten. This is the finest piece I have read on Manifestation and there’s been some great ones.
Best wishes,
Nicola

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About Jen Pastiloff

People Magazine says: Jennifer is changing women's lives through her empowerment workshops.
Cheryl Strayed says: Jennifer Pastiloff is a conduit of awakenings.
Lidia Yuknavitch says: Dear Jen, From you I have learned to alchemize fear with love, to redistribute love through compassion, to enter a room with others.
Jen leads her signature Manifestation Workshop: On Being Human all over the world & online. Her memoir will be published by Dutton Books in 2019. Preorders available now at JenniferPastiloff.com
Her workshops are a unique blend of writing and some yoga. She has developed a massive following based on her writing & workshops.
A London workshop attendee says, "A space to show up and be human. A fusion of yoga and singing and writing and sharing, with laughter and tears mixed in! To be held and encouraged so beautifully by Jen, who won't flinch....but stay connected to us all through the journey. She creates a strong container, sits on the edges of our yoga mats listening to the stories that weave us together as human beings. She gives us the gift of attention, space and time.
It's a space for connecting, for intimacy...you leave in a different place from where you arrive...It's a chance to show up, to own our fears and our dreams, our deep yearnings and the things we'd love to manifest in our lives. A chance to be wholeheartedly present and come back home a little more to ourselves."
Jen also leads retreats with Emily Rapp & Lidia Yuknavitch. She is also the guest speaker at Canyon Ranch three times a year. All info is at the top under Retreats/Workshops.Donate below to our scholarship fund to help send someone to a workshop/retreat who can't afford to attend.

About Angela M Giles

Angela M Giles is an editor and fellow badass at The Manifest-Station. Angela prides herself on being exactly who she is: An accidental warrior working to make grace and kindness sexy again. In her day job as a senior executive at an investment firm, she navigates the patriarchy, the glass ceiling, and government regulations with surprising ease and unapologetic language. By night she reads and writes and listens to music and occasionally sleeps. Her full-time passion is her son, who is proof that her heart exists outside her body.
She has had her work appear online at The Nervous Breakdown, Literary Mothers, Medium: Human Parts as well as other journals. She has been featured in print at The Healing Muse and is a contributor to Shades of Blue, an anthology on depression and suicide from Seal Press. Angela tweets and is on Instagram as @angela.m.giles, and when inspired updates her blog, Air Hunger (http://airhunger.net). Angela lives in Massachusetts where she conquers the world, one day at a time.

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